Mad Max First Gameplay Video Looks Pretty Good

Avalanche Studios is heading up the new game Mad Max, based loosely on the films of the same name and coming out in time to also loosely tie-in with the movie being directed by George Miller that stars Tom Hardy, better known as Gotham's reckoning. At a recent trade show event where off-screen (but full-screen) footage of Mad Max was captured and it looks pretty good.

DSO Gaming spotted the video courtesy of Guru3D forum member “Stone Gargoyle”. The video itself comes from Russian YouTube user Zoneofgamesru, which would explain why the video is in Russian.

It's a short video, as you can see. There's only two minutes and ten seconds of gameplay but it's all gameplay and it comes off as smooth and weighty. In fact, the one thing I was most worried about with Mad Max was whether the game would carry the same kind of vehicular weight as the movies. This gameplay will rely heavily on vehicle-based combat and it can't feel too arcadey or light, or else gamers won't feel the immersion of that intense nature of post-apocalyptic metal grinding at over 100mph on the deserted roads of the outback.

I'm happy to see that Avalanche managed to really get the vehicle physics down (at least for the Magnum Opus) where the car moves and appears to handle as if traction, ground surface and inclines/declines play a part in how momentum and weight shifts throughout the vehicle. I love it.

The dust and smoke effects also look superb, though they were only on display for a very short period of time. The physics effects from the falling tower also looked pretty good. Individual piping and makeshift structural beams splintered and broke and rolled toward the vehicle in a very believable and dynamic way. And this folks, is how graphics affect gameplay and gameplay immersion.

It's nice to see that Avalanche Studios is doing more than just scaling up the resolution and framerate but they're actually using the hardware of the new consoles to bring visual effects and graphics-affecting gameplay mechanics to life in ways that fits the mythos of Mad Max. It's brilliant.

On foot, Max moves with age and stiffness and I think that's very fitting. I was surprised to see that there is some small measure of platform scaling; that feature alone really opens up a doorway to a lot of cool gaming possibilities, including platforming segments, sniping spots and destructive opportunities.

So far, Mad Max is looking like it could shape up to be a pretty cool first-generation title for the new gen consoles. Let's hope some of the power performance disparities between the Xbox One and PS4 don't hinder Avalanche from truly bringing the game to life in the way that it deserves.